Elizabethtown College Men's Cross Country:
2003 Season in Review

In 2003, the Elizabethtown College men's cross country team stretched its current Middle Atlantic Conference championship streak - already the second-longest in College history - to five consecutive years when it edged out Messiah College 55-60 at DeSales University November 1. Six Blue Jay harriers - Steve Sanko '05, Greg Wetzel '06, Nate Moore '05, Jose Miranda '05, Sean Mulcahy '04, and Jason Ives '07 - earned All-MAC honors by finishing among the top twenty at the MAC Championships, and Sanko earned a place on the all-conference first team by finishing fourth overall.

The team also placed third at the NCAA Mideast Regionals, hosted by Dickinson College at Carlisle High School, in 2003, marking the fifth year in a row the Blue Jays have finished as one of the top three teams in the region. Four Etown runners earned All-Region honors by finishing in the top 35 at the regional meet, including Sanko, Wetzel, Mulcahy, and Miranda. Sanko finished fourth out of 249 runners in the region and qualified as an individual to compete at the NCAA Division III Championship meet in Hanover, Indiana, where he finished 90th in the nation in a field of 215 competitors.

Over the course of the 2003 season, Etown won the Capital Area Classic by defeating Dickinson and Messiah, placed fourth overall as the top Division III team at the Penn State Spiked Shoe Invitational, finished seventh overall as the top Division III team at the Lock Haven Invitational, and placed second at the Hanover College Kiwanis Pre-National Invitational. There, the Blue Jays defeated Emory University, which eventually finished 16th in the nation, by 20 points.

Following the conclusion of the season, head coach Chris Straub was named the MAC Coach of the Year for the fourth consecutive year. The team retained its status of having the top cumulative grade point average of all the fall sports programs at Elizabethtown College, and ten Blue Jay harriers (over 90% of the team eligible to receive the award) - Ryan Beltz '05, Matt Miller '05, Miranda, Moore, Mulcahy, Nick Patterson '06, Matt Rockwell '05, Sanko, Wetzel, and Chris Williams '05, earned spots on the MAC All-Academic Team by compiling cumulative GPAs of 3.20 or higher coupled with sophomore academic status or greater. Also, Williams possessed the top cumulative GPA of all male fall sport athletes at Etown, edging out teammate Miller, who held the honor in 2002.

Additional Info on the 2003 Men's Cross Country Season:

• Team Roster
• Statistics
• Schedule & Links to Results
• Pictures, Page One
• Pictures, Page Two
• Pictures, Page Three